A group of concerned floral industry veterans announced in a news release that they are forming a new trade association, the Flower Handling Association of North America.

According to a statement from Flower Handling Association of North America Organizing Committee Chairman and spokesman Terry Johnson, “Our mission will be to develop, implement and monitor flower handling standards designed to improve consumer satisfaction with their flower purchases.”

FHANA’s organizing committee evaluated decades of research emphasizing how improper flower handling has hurt the floral industry, and recognized that very little has been done to improve flower vase life even in light of this body of compelling evidence according to the release.

“No company can be successful marketing or promoting how great flowers are if they aren’t always great with consumers,” said Johnson in the release. “We believe that regardless of where flowers are grown, they should be properly handled from farms to North American markets. Once proper flower handling is performed consistently we should see a significant increase in consumer flower sales,” Johnson predicted.

The North American floral industry has no clearly defined minimum acceptable standards for flower handling and quality control in place insuring that regardless of the source of flower production, quality flowers would be consistently delivered to retailers.

“What is needed more now than at any time in our history is broad floral industry acknowledgement of the extent of the problems and damage caused by the lack of such standards, along with a mechanism that would insure those standards would be implemented so that all segments of flower distribution would benefit from growers to retailers,” said Johnson in a written statement.

The FHANA organizing committee proposed the following set of principles and standards to be agreed upon and followed for everyone’s mutual benefit:

• To make consumer satisfaction with flower quality our No. 1 priority.

• To make the daily conversation during the buy-sell process more about improving quality for the consumer, and less about price.

• To recognize that only by improving at least 90 percent of the total flower supply can flower vase life reach a desired level of consistency to improve consumer’s perceptions of flower quality.

• To create a culture of flower quality within the North American flower community and with all sources of flowers marketed within this community.

• To support an independent monitoring and reporting mechanism that would ensure proper implementation and continuity of the standards.

• The association will not promote individual flower farms or flower growing regions.